


darkest night

by mnemememory



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-10
Updated: 2019-12-10
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:40:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21739243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mnemememory/pseuds/mnemememory
Summary: Essek has always been so careful.(or; the mighty nein are the group equivalent of stokholm syndrome).
Relationships: Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 10
Kudos: 393





	darkest night

...

...

**darkest night**

...

...

Essek has always been so careful.

One does not obtain his position without a certain amount of caution. Ruthlessness, yes, but also the discipline to know when to push the knife deeper or when to pull away and let the blood flow. There are centuries upon centuries of intrigue built into the foundations of his city, grudges and alliances hanging thick in the corridors like cobwebs. Essek breezes through the crowded hallways by dint of being relatively new. That won’t last long.

He wonders about his people, sometimes – the Consecution, the atrophy. There are creatures in the high advisory that are older than Essek can fathom. Essek isn’t stupid enough to think that he is immune to the wear of old age, but he is still young. There is time to stagnate later. Right now, Essek is careful, and Essek is going to use every scrap of intelligence he has to his advantage.

 _Shadowhand_ , the Bright Queen calls him. His echoes agree.

(he sees them in the mirror, sometimes, out of the corner of his eye: uncast, the whisper of a thing from another time, face blank and eyes bloody. _Here is a decision you never made_ , a voice whispers, and then is gone).

It is ridiculous, then, that he is taking such risks for people who are so very obviously _spies_.

They’re not even good spies, which is the insulting thing. Well – they’re good enough to have gained the favour of the Bright Queen and also possibly the eternal-so-long-as-they-don’t-push-it gratitude of the Dynasty, but still. This is getting ridiculous. There’s only so many times he can pretend to ignore _Should we betray the Dynasty_? before he’s morally (and probably legally) obligated to do something about it.

“What do you think of them?”

Essek keeps his head low, his eyes slightly shifted to the side. None can compare to the Bright Queen in terms of raw, physical presence. She gleams in every sense of the word, his future-present-past fixated on her existence.

“They are…wilful,” he says. “They respect your authority.” Probably.

“You’ve been teaching a human our magic,” she says.

“I have.”

“And what is your opinion on that?”

Essek collects his thoughts. He came into this audience prepared with pretty lies that form unevenly across his mouth. There are only so many times he can throw in his lot with this band of lunatics before things start to deteriorate. Frankly, they’ve already started to deteriorate.

“Caleb Widogast is talented,” he finally says. There are some lines he can’t cross. Not even for these people who have inexplicably wormed their way underneath his skin and rotted into his veins. “He is dangerous, but I do not know if he is an ally or an asset.”

“They are allies,” the Bright Queen says, and it is so. Then she adds, “For now.”

“They are powerful individuals,” Essek says. His voice does not falter, his face does not show anything but polite respect. _Be afraid_ , he is told, _but not too afraid_.

Caleb Widogast lives in a silken veil of fear. Essek watches him, watches them all. His magic curls around him like his unruly cat, defensive and restless. If Essek were to reach out and touch him –

“Keep an eye on them,” his Queen says, and then he is dismissed.

…

…

They keep _asking_ for things.

Essek isn’t sure what’s worse – that they ask, or that he fulfils each and every one of their ridiculous requests.

“We appreciate this,” Caleb Widogast says, reaching for him.

Essek pulls away and tries to smile. He leaves them there, in the forest, in the dark, with the monsters.

He knows what other countries call Xhorhas, call his people. “Monster” is such a loaded term, and yet. And yet. The things that these idiots face – these creatures – they are as surely monsters as Essek has ever heard. He is not very good as assured evil, though he has his doubts about the Empire, but everything they have said…

(They come back. And they disappear).

…

…

Caleb Widogast is tall and skinny and afraid.

Essek watches the way Caleb Widogast watches the world. He is hungry. (They are both hungry). Caleb’s eyes follow Essek’s spellbook with intensity that sets Essek’s blood to blister. He consents to a lesson, because he is a very foolish person, and also because he wants to spend more time with the human who has made his home in the lightless city.

“Change,” Caleb chooses, so Essek teaches him how to change the world a fragment at a time.

It’s infuriating, the ease at which he takes to Essek’s magic. Essek keeps his hands tucked into his sleeves and his spellbook latched tight. He has spent so much of his life being paranoid, and really, they aren’t even _trying_ at this point. Open talk of treason? He’s not exactly stupid.

He stays quiet.

(Maybe Essek is stupid after all).

“You are my student,” he says, and he means, _don’t fuck me over_. When this all inevitably comes crashing down around their ears, Essek will be remembered as the one who let them get away. Who taught them the secrets of the Dynasty, who should have seen this coming. Caleb Widogast burns bright as a beacon in the night, and Essek cannot help but be drawn in.

“I will not,” Caleb Widogast says, _lying_.

Essek makes a show of believing him. Essek is very good at flattering people, very good at scraping and primping and stabbing when the chance if sight. He has magic sparking at his fingertips and a dagger at his thigh, but he can’t do it. He can’t arrest them.

They are so _kind_.

…

…

“Guess what your pet projects have done this time,” the Bright Queen says, eyes glittering.

Essek doesn’t react. Just simply waits to judgement to come down upon his head. There is such a difference in power in this room that Essek won’t even be angry if he is executed. Resignation tastes bitter.

“I have called off the attack,” she says. “On Rexxentrum.”

 _Now_ Essek looks up.

“You’ve done _what_.”

“I just received a dignitary from Tal’dorie,” she says. Essek is beginning to feel lightheaded. “Who convinced me that your little group of misfits is doing good work there.”

“In Rexxentrum,” Essek says. His throat is very dry.

“Yes,” the Bright Queen says.

Essek feels the absurd urge to defend them. _Defend them_. That just shows how deep the indoctrination ran, really.

“They are our allies, after all,” the Bright Queen says. “For now.”

When Essek next sees Caleb, he’s going to _kill him_.

…

…

**Author's Note:**

> hi! so essek is my favourite thing ever, and i started writing this months ago, and i had a sudden burst of inspiration and finished it last night!! 
> 
> i ship them now apparently. dammit liam.


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